On Being Home by Chris Murray

I am the type of person
that reads landscapes
like they are love poems
and criticizes them
for not being beautiful enough.

I grew up in a city surrounded by trees,
had to find beautiful
behind old Chinese food restaurants
and under rusted train tracks.

There is nothing beautiful
about empty beer cans
on the kitchen floor,
but it smells like home.

I turned my body into
a late night cityscape,
spent nights trying to find
the stars on the edge of my skin
but this place has a way of making you remember
that there are nights when streetlights
are too bright.

Now I pop beer bottle caps
on the edge of rivers
looking up at mountains,
reminding myself that home
will always taste the same.